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Post by duwayne on May 3, 2023 14:13:14 GMT
We’re now about one month away from a significant Cycle 25 milestone. As happens once each cycle, the individual charges at the sun’s north and south poles will have fallen to zero. The sun’s north/south poloidal magnetic field will have totally disintegrated from it’s peak in mid-2019. A new poloidal field is beginning to develop.
Below is a simplified video depicting how the sun morphs from a strong poloidal field to no poloidal field
So the sun’s now a mess. It's very active.
When the poloidal field was at its strongest, magnetic ropes ran between the poles (only 5 ropes out of many are shown in the video). The sun was one large magnetic field.
Then the field got ripped apart because the various latitudes of the sun rotate at different speeds.
The end of the video depicts where we are today. The long magnetic ropes which extended between the poles are now broken into small pieces, essentially small magnets. On a cumulative basis they retain the original magnetic energy. These small ropes orient in the east-west direction and over time form a strong east-west magnetic field called a toroidal field. The poloidal and toroidal exist at the same time. When the poloidal field is strong the toroidal field is weak. There is a point in time when one field or the other will drop to zero and then begin to rebuild. The poloidal field is now at zero.
These small magnets are now rebuilding into magnets of significant strength. The long ropes in the original poloidal phase of Cycle 25 reached energy levels of 130 Gauss. These new smaller magnets concentrate the magnetic force and individually can reach 1500 Gauss and above. If the level of 1500 Gauss is reached and the ropes find their way to the surface of the sun we’ll see them as sunspots. This has been happening more and more after the poloidal field broke up.
Solar scientists have tried to physically model the details of the sun’s metamorphosis from poloidal field to toroidal field, but like weather models the results come out all over the place when they try to predict the future maximum sunspot number for the current cycle. Most scientists significantly overpredicted the strength of the sunspot peak in Cycle 24. A few underpredicted and some even said we were headed for a new Maunder Minimum.
As noted previously Svalgaard uses a Statistical Model. He looked at past cycles and noted that the strength of the sunspot peak correlates with the strength of the earlier peak of the poloidal cycle. From this simple relationship alone, he accurately predicted the maximum smoothed sunspot for Cycle 24.
From the poloidal peak in mid-2019, which was similar to the peak from the previous cycle but slightly higher, he predicted the peak sunspot cycle for Cycle 25 would be similar to Cycle 24 but slightly higher.
I’ve labeled this thread Solar Poloidal Field 2023+ to follow the progress of the poloidal field which is just now beginning to develop as indicated by zero charges at the north and south poles. This could give us a good idea of what sunspot Cycle 26 will look like in terms of peak sunspot numbers not long after Cycle 25 maxes out. That, of course depends on whether Svalgaard’s prediction continues to work out for Cycle 25.
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Post by missouriboy on May 3, 2023 14:57:35 GMT
The next 3 years should be quite interesting.
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Post by ratty on May 4, 2023 0:58:17 GMT
The next 3 years should be quite interesting. Chinese curse 'interesting'?
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Post by acidohm on May 6, 2023 5:37:36 GMT
Your post brilliantly solidifies my perception of what's going on, mechanically, during a solar cycle, great post thankyou D! Looking at cycle 25 progression, can it be possible we've already passed the maximum? I think certainly the signature final elevated peak is there and the timing is about right.... Drawing conclusions at this point reminds me of Fitzroy's reason for establishing the word 'forecast' instead of 'predicting' the weather. As a man of god he didn't want to make assumptions on the the future of a process that fell in the realm of the 'will of god" and call it a prediction. Ie, predict what god was doing....he felt forecasting the will of God was more appropriate. I don't think we can assume to know what will happen next, but give it a month or two, the chances of seeing an ssn peak higher then what we see now will be diminishing greatly.
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Post by acidohm on May 6, 2023 5:48:16 GMT
Just to remind anyone interested, leif svalgaard has this research page with lots of links.... svalgaard.leif.org/I used to follow the Livingston and Penn observations on gauss levels as they, and svalgaard hypothesised levels may drop to the point where sunspots no longer formed (a concept highlighted by Mr.D's post above) I can only assume the idea has been dropped as graphs were regularly updated 10 years ago, but now the links are 404....
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Post by acidohm on May 6, 2023 5:51:40 GMT
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Post by acidohm on May 6, 2023 6:03:24 GMT
Overview of a paper by L&P 2011. phys.org/news/2010-09-sunspots-decades.htmlPerhaps why Svalgaard disassociated from L&P (assumption!!) They were concluding based on observable drop in gauss levels, sunspots may dissappear by 2016. Svalgaard was clearly on board, at least at an observational level.... Obviously no such disappearance occurred, I can't immediately see anything from L&P since the last solar maximum was reached.
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Post by acidohm on May 6, 2023 6:42:34 GMT
Lastly, regarding predictions of cycle strength, I'd really like to see a format which accounted for Hemispheric peaks. Cycle 24s peak, which is then used as a maximum ssn, was almost entirely derived from the later southern hemisphere peak. The overall strength of a cycle can't really be reflected by a peak number. Duration of cycle and total daily ssn numbers should be amalgamated. 'If' cycle 24 had both hemispheres peak simultaneously (as it appears they will in cycle 25) the ssn peak would have been, well ok, depends how you calculate it. If we simply add the 2 peak (to the nearest 5 for simplicity) 115+95=210 So 115 is later SH peak During SH peak, NH was at approx 40, so cycle 24 peak was ~155. During NH peak, SH was at approx 35 so the earlier peak was ~130 OK, so there's roughly 30 months between peaks, so 24 month smoothing goes some way to balance things out, however, neither figure at time of individual peaks are anywhere near the combined figure of simultaneous peaks. This therefore produces a lower peak ssn which doesn't really reflect the cycles output. There's many comments out there about how month on month, the start of cycle 25 has been stronger the 24 etc. That's all well and good....but look at what the SH (green) was contributing in the early stages of 24....FA!! This has not been the case thus far in 25 where both hemisphere (until recently) have been well synced. Hence why I've been bleating on that I reckon this'll be a single peak, and because the hemisphere uncoupled recently, perhaps the peak has passed..... Which tied in nicely with Duwaynes post above.
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Post by missouriboy on May 7, 2023 1:42:34 GMT
Going Down.
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Post by acidohm on May 7, 2023 6:28:09 GMT
Going Down. Nearly 5 months since the high point of solar flux. Clock is ticking!
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Post by nonentropic on May 7, 2023 8:32:03 GMT
Its the asynchronous peak that has somewhat suppressed the peak in cycles past. But this SC25 looks quite muted but stretchered out possibly.
I remember many years ago a David Archibald, "I think" who claimed the short cycles were big/weak?? so don't look at the peak look at the cumulative volume as per the stuff that MB and Acid are working through.
intuitively if the magnetic peaks North South are displaced it would favour a longer cycle. or maybe cycle flux magnitude average is a metric we should look at.
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Post by acidohm on May 7, 2023 8:47:35 GMT
Its the asynchronous peak that has somewhat suppressed the peak in cycles past. But this SC25 looks quite muted but stretchered out possibly. I remember many years ago a David Archibald, "I think" who claimed the short cycles were big/weak?? so don't look at the peak look at the cumulative volume as per the stuff that MB and Acid are working through. intuitively if the magnetic peaks North South are displaced it would favour a longer cycle. or maybe cycle flux magnitude average is a metric we should look at. I completely agree non! Just falling in line with accepted metric that a cycles strength is judge by its smoothed peak. Absolutely a analysis should involve length/peak/accumulation as some sort of ratio, I think it might be revealing.
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Post by missouriboy on May 7, 2023 12:19:27 GMT
Its the asynchronous peak that has somewhat suppressed the peak in cycles past. But this SC25 looks quite muted but stretchered out possibly. I remember many years ago a David Archibald, "I think" who claimed the short cycles were big/weak?? so don't look at the peak look at the cumulative volume as per the stuff that MB and Acid are working through. intuitively if the magnetic peaks North South are displaced it would favour a longer cycle. or maybe cycle flux magnitude average is a metric we should look at. I completely agree non! Just falling in line with accepted metric that a cycles strength is judge by its smoothed peak. Absolutely a analysis should involve length/peak/accumulation as some sort of ratio, I think it might be revealing. What exactly would that ratio be composed of? We have total and hemispheric spots and flux and geomagnetic and ? Cumulative? By parts of cycle? by total? by hemisphere? And no need to stop there. There is also the quantifiable(?) effects of solar radiation on oceanic heat cycles. We know have a strong gut feeling it's there. What else is the source of the energy (heat) that accumulates largely in the liquid upper parts of the tropical oceans and then is distributed globally ... both in liquid and gaseous form. Those pulses of energy (in all its phases) as modified by orbits, physical geography and fluid-gaseous mechanics are our climates.
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Post by blustnmtn on May 8, 2023 12:42:30 GMT
I will preface this by saying I know nothing...Why isn't a solar cycle's amplitude the total power under the "curve" of the flux and SSN waveform. Seems to me that's what matters.
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Post by Sigurdur on May 8, 2023 12:50:37 GMT
There is variation of the SWR from the sun. That is the true measure of sun's output.
I don't know the mechanics that drives the SWR, I did post a Twitter link with that data.
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